Good Work

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital marketing manager at Freeman Company. We organize large events like conferences, exhibitions, and trade shows as brand experiences. I manage our website, social media, PPC, SEO, and all things digital.

What challenge were you trying to address with Good Work?

We had a couple of challenges. One was that the team that we had used to create our website wasn't able to meet our continuing needs. They had revamped our site in 2015 when we were a very different company. Since then, we had made a number of acquisitions and had decided to incorporate our global companies into our main site. We, therefore, had some backend structural issues that needed to be addressed. We also had turnaround time issues with them. We’d been launching new projects almost monthly for different sections of the website. We needed someone that could keep up.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Good Work redesigned and developed our website, both front- and backend. I provided them with initial designs by our in-house creative team and wireframes that my team drafted. They did a design audit and provided recommendations that we incorporated. They completely restructured the site and its navigation.

What is the team composition?

Our initial contact was the owner. We worked with a project manager and a team of developers including two senior developers and more junior ones.

How did you come to work with Good Work?

The prior company we used was out of town, and we struggled with that, so I decided to look locally. I searched online via Google and LinkedIn. We use Craft CMS so needed a vendor that understood that platform and could implement it with high professionalism and quality. I mainly searched for Craft experts.

When I found Good Work, I scheduled a call with the owner. He came in and met with us, which I felt worked better for us. We could explain our issues and expectations face-to-face.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent close to $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January 2018–March 2019.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The response from our internal teams has been very positive. I sought to take the company in a new direction, and Good Work was an integral part of making that happen—no small feat for a $2 billion company with 4,000 employees worldwide. The entire site is visibly changed and updated in addition to the invisible backend improvements. They were also able to offer us advice on how to unblock some severe problems we had with the Craft CMS. The impacts have been significant both from sales and brand perspectives.

How did Good Work perform from a project management standpoint?

I had weekly calls with the project manager and communicated almost daily via Trello, which I use to manage the site. The site is complex, so the two senior developers took the lead, and the junior developers referred to them. Sometimes we communicated directly with the developers if they had specific questions.

We came up with a process to prioritize tasks. They were great at jumping in and worked hard to fit our style. Unfortunately, while they were very accommodating, the approaches didn’t match.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing about Good Work is their ability to inspire confidence and really feel like a partner, not just a vendor. I could always trust that they would give me advice that was good for my company and for my team. Their honesty and integrity are qualities that are sometimes hard to find in other vendors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I could probably think of something because no one’s perfect but nothing stood out. Our issues weren’t necessarily areas for them to change their business.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The onboarding process could have included the project manager. Most of our conversations at the outset were with the owner, but the project manager is the tactical person. She missed the discussions about our workflows and project management. If she had been involved from the beginning, they might have been able to better match their work style to our needs in terms of deadlines and roadmaps.